By Jeff Foust

In this today's edition: NASA's restructuring plans, Isar Aerospace raises more money, a startup plans reusable satellites, and more.

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Top Stories

NASA's acting administrator said she is planning to decide on a new top-level structure for the agency in the coming weeks. At an internal town hall meeting Wednesday, acting administrator Janet Petro said she is considering three approaches that would align the agency along either mission directorates, field centers or product lines. She added she wanted to move much of the work from NASA Headquarters to centers. At the town hall, Petro said she would remain acting administrator until a successor is confirmed, a process other officials said could take six to nine months. Agency officials used the town hall to defend a budget proposal that would cut NASA spending by nearly 25% and also said that they are not making any plans for layoffs, although voluntary buyout efforts have so far only accounted for a fraction of the agency's projected workforce reduction. [SpaceNews]

U.S. satellite imagery providers are intensifying their warnings over proposed cuts to the National Reconnaissance Office's commercial imagery budget. On a SpaceNews webinar Wednesday, executives said the potential cuts are not only disruptive, but out of sync with the administration's expressed support for a more competitive commercial space sector. The proposal would cut spending on commercial optical imagery by 30% and end funding for radar imagery. The Commercial Spaceflight Federation in a letter this week urged lawmakers to restore the full funding for commercial imagery and allocate an additional $83 million to the Space Systems Command's Commercial Space Office, which procures commercial satellite data for military uses. [SpaceNews]

German launch startup Isar Aerospace raised an additional 150 million euros ($174 million) from an American firm. Isar said Wednesday it raised the money through a convertible bond from Eldridge Industries, a Miami-based company that invests in a variety of industries, including technology. Isar will use the funding to expand launch capabilities and production facilities at its headquarters near Munich. Isar launched its first Spectrum rocket in March, but the vehicle lost attitude control about 30 seconds after liftoff and crashed. An Isar executive said at a conference a month ago that the company is planning a second launch by the end of the year. [SpaceNews]

ESA is turning to Rocket Lab to launch a pair of navigation tech demo satellites. Rocket Lab said Wednesday it won a contract for the launch of the "Pathfinder A" satellites, built by GMV and Thales Alenia Space, on an Electron no earlier than December. The satellites are a precursor to Europe's proposed LEO-PNT constellation of navigation satellites in low Earth orbit. ESA said it awarded Rocket Lab the contract to ensure the satellites would be in orbit by next spring to meet a deadline from the International Telecommunication Union to put spectrum assigned to them in use. [SpaceNews]

Startup Lux Aeterna has raised $4 million in seed funding for work on reusable satellites. The Denver-based company plans to launch a demonstration mission, Delphi, in 2027, placing a 200-kilogram satellite into orbit that will be able to reenter at the end of its mission for recovery and reuse. Lux Aeterna says the design could serve customers looking to perform technology demonstrations in orbit and then recover the hardware or companies planning in-space manufacturing. [SpaceNews]

A wildfire-detection satellite launched earlier this year has returned its first images. The FireSat Protoflight satellite, built by Muon Space, launched in March on a SpaceX rideshare mission. It carries a multispectal infrared instrument, and the company said the new images show that instrument is working as expected. The spacecraft is a prototype for a constellation of more than 50 satellites planned by the nonprofit Earth Fire Alliance (EFA) to provide rapid detection of wildfires. [SpaceNews]

Other News

A private astronaut mission arrived at the International Space Station this morning. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Grace docked with the station's Harmony module at 6:31 a.m. Eastern, roughly 30 minutes ahead of schedule. The spacecraft launched yesterday on Axiom Space's Ax-4 mission, carrying astronauts from Hungary, India and Poland as well as former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. The Dragon will remain at the station for about two weeks as the Ax-4 crew performs dozens of experiments and outreach activities. [NASA]

SpaceX followed up yesterday's Crew Dragon launch with another Starlink launch. A Falcon 9 lifted off at 3:54 p.m. Eastern Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, placing 27 Starlink satellites into orbit. The booster used for the launch completed its 20th mission, with past flights including two previous Axiom Space launches. [Spaceflight Now]

China is considering sending a swarm of cubesats to an asteroid when it flies by Earth in 2029. Scientists from several Chinese universities are proposing a "rapid response" mission to the asteroid Apophis, which will pass close to the Earth in April 2029. The Apophis Recon Swarm (ARS) proposal features a flexible mission design, consisting of multiple cubesats launched either together or as rideshares on other missions for multiple flybys of Apophis. Several other agencies worldwide are planning missions to study Apophis before and after the flyby. [SpaceNews]

Blue Origin is trying to take advantage of the split between President Trump and Elon Musk. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos has spoken with Trump at least twice this month, and CEO Dave Limp met with White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in mid-June. The conversations are seen as efforts by Blue Origin to get more government contracts as Elon Musk's influence on the administration, once thought to help SpaceX, has waned. One problem for Blue Origin is that while SpaceX is planning to perform 170 Falcon launches this year alone, Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket has flown just once with a second launch not expected before late summer. [Wall Street Journal]

The James Webb Space Telescope has directly observed an exoplanet the size of Saturn. Astronomers announced Wednesday the discovery of the planet orbiting TWA 7, a young star more than 100 light-years away. While JWST has discovered more than 100 planets, those previous discoveries were indirect detections, and this exoplanet is the first seen directly by the telescope. [Science News]

John Casani, a longtime engineer and manager of NASA spacecraft missions, has died at the age of 92. Casani joined JPL in 1956 and worked on many early Ranger and Mariner missions, then served as project manager for Voyager, Galileo and Cassini. He retired in 1999 only to return to JPL in 2003 in various roles until a second retirement in 2012. He also led an independent review of JWST in 2010. He received multiple awards in his career, including NASA's Exceptional Achievement Medal and the Air and Space Museum Trophy for Lifetime Achievement. [NASA/JPL]

What's the Over/Under on a NASA Administrator?

"If I knew the exact answer to this, I would go from here to a gambling establishment."

– Brian Hughes, NASA chief of staff, when asked at a town hall meeting Wednesday the timeline for getting a new administrator for the agency confirmed.

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